Dispute swirls around rescued pit bull at Redlands Animal Shelter

REDLANDS - The city Animal Shelter is in the midst of a dispute over ownership of a 1-year-old American pit bull terrier known as Lily and her litter.

It will be up to the city attorney to determine who is the rightful owner - the party who paid to adopt the dog or a Redlands woman who says the dog is hers.

The dog, found roaming city streets in early December, was brought to the shelter, a low-kill facility, to wait for her owner to claim her. The dog had no microchip or collar on when she arrived, officials said.

After a four business-day waiting period, no one had claimed the dog, officials said, so shelter volunteers worked to find the dog - who was expecting - someone to adopt and care for her and her pups.

Someone in Oregon - who asked not to be identified - stepped up but needed $500 to pay to transport and to further care for the dog and her litter.

Members of the shelter's volunteer organization - Redlands Friends of Shelter Animals, or RedFOSA - took to social media sites and other means in search of donations.

After the donations were collected, the dog was removed from the shelter and placed in foster care so it could give birth in a less stressful environment while the rescue party waited for the puppies and the dog to be healthy enough for transport to Oregon.

Lily had a litter of 10 - but one was stillborn and two others died a short time later.

A RedFOSA volunteer posted a photo of Lily and her family on Facebook. A few minutes later, someone posted on the thread, saying the dog might be owned by a friend named Denise Samano.

Samano said she logged onto Facebook and saw a positive ID of her dog, known to her as Beauty, who had gone missing on Nov. 29.

After posting that the dog might be hers, Samano received comments saying it was too late to claim the dog because someone had already adopted her and the litter.

On Friday, the I.C.A.R.E. Network - a nonprofit organization that works to save pets who are on "death row" or help raise funds for medical assistance - posted a thread on its Facebook page asking for pet lovers to call the shelter to express their concern.

Comments siding with both the rescue party and Samano quickly flooded the posting, and the shelter and police Lt. Travis Martinez, who oversees the shelter, received calls from all over the state, the country and even Canada.

Martinez said several attempts by Samano to tell her side of the story have since been deleted, and several people who have called him have not heard the entire story.

Several people posted on RedFOSA's Facebook page and other rescue sites that they will no longer work with the Redlands Animal Shelter unless the situation is resolved in favor of the Oregon rescuer.

Martinez said the goal of the shelter is to reunite pets with their owners if they are responsible and loving.

He added, "There are always two sides to every story."

Samano said she believed her dog was taken from the backyard of her north Redlands home in the early hours of Nov. 29.

Samano said she then contacted the shelter that morning in search of her Beauty.

She said a shelter staff member told her no dog at the shelter matched Beauty's description and recommended that Samano monitor the Pet Harbor site to see if her dog arrived at the shelter.

Samano said she posted photos on Facebook in the hopes her friends would see her dog and let her know of Beauty's whereabouts. Samano said she was concerned about the safety of Beauty and the litter.

On Dec. 15, she was notified that her dog was possibly at the shelter and called that evening, she said. But the shelter was closed, she said, and would not reopen until the 18th.

She said she posted on the shelter's Facebook page that the dog might be hers and asked the shelter not to send the dog anywhere until she could come to the shelter to ID it.

A relieved Samano thought everything would be OK, but she was to discover otherwise.

Many pet lovers posted that if their dog had gone missing, they would have been at the shelter every day making sure their dog wasn't there. They would have also searched the animal shelters in San Bernardino and Devore, they said.

Usually - because of overbreeding - pit bulls and Chihuahuas are the first to be euthanized at shelters to make room for other animals, she said.

It is also especially hard, she said, to find rescues for pit bulls, especially ones with litters.

"We are a small shelter with only 28 kennels," Ferrara said. "It's a hard decision to make when the kennels are full which dogs have to be euthanized, and the pit bulls are usually the first to go."

She said it was unfortunate that Samano didn't find the dog before arrangements were made to send it elsewhere.

"We worked so hard to save Lily," Ferrara said. "If Lily was found in Devore or San Bernardino, she would have been in a plastic bag. We saved this dog from death and her puppies from death. It's just not right."

Since no compromise was reached between Samano and the rescue party, Martinez said he will meet with City Attorney Dan McHugh on Monday to get his interpretation of who is the rightful owner.